Biographies of Women Mathematicians

Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace

December 10, 1815 - November 27, 1852

Contributed by Dr. Betty Toole

Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace, was one of the most picturesque characters in
computer history. Augusta Ada Byron was born December 10, 1815 the daughter
of the illustrious poet, Lord Byron. Five weeks after Ada was born Lady
Byron asked for a separation from Lord Byron, and was awarded sole custody
of Ada who she brought up to be a mathematician and scientist. Lady Byron
was terrified that Ada might end up being a poet like her father. Despite
Lady Byron's programming Ada did not sublimate her poetical inclinations.
She hoped to be "an analyst and a metaphysician". In her 30's she wrote
her mother, if you can't give me poetry, can't you give me "poetical
science?" Her understanding of mathematics was laced with imagination, and
described in metaphors.

At the age of 17 Ada was introduced to Mary Somerville, a remarkable woman
who translated LaPlace's works into English, and whose texts were used at
Cambridge. Though Mrs. Somerville encouraged Ada in her mathematical
studies, she also attempted to put mathematics and technology into an
appropriate human context. It was at a dinner party at Mrs. Somerville's
that Ada heard in November, 1834, Babbage's ideas for a new calculating
engine, the Analytical Engine. He conjectured: what if a calculating engine
could not only foresee but could act on that foresight. Ada was touched by
the "universality of his ideas". Hardly anyone else was.

Babbage worked on plans for this new engine and reported on the developments
at a seminar in Turin, Italy in the autumn of 1841. An Italian, Menabrea,
wrote a summary of what Babbage described and published an article in
French about the development. Ada, in 1843, married to the Earl of Lovelace
and the mother of three children under the age of eight, translated
Menabrea's article. When she showed Babbage her translation he suggested
that she add her own notes, which turned out to be three times the length of
the original article. Letters between Babbage and Ada flew back and forth
filled with fact and fantasy. In her article, published in 1843, Lady
Lovelace's prescient comments included her predictions that such a machine
might be used to compose complex music, to produce graphics, and would be
used for both practical and scientific use. She was correct.

When inspired Ada could be very focused and a mathematical taskmaster. Ada
suggested to Babbage writing a plan for how the engine might calculate
Bernoulli numbers. This plan, is now regarded as the first "computer
program." A software language developed by the U.S. Department of Defense
was named "Ada" in her honor in 1979.

After she wrote the description of Babbage's Analytical Engine her life was
plagued with illnesses, and her social life, in addition to Charles Babbage,
included Sir David Brewster (the originator of the kaleidoscope), Charles
Wheatstone, Charles Dickens and
Michael Faraday. Her interests ranged from music to horses to calculating
machines. She has been used as a character in Gibson and Sterling's "The
Difference Engine", shown writing letters to Babbage in the series "The
Machine that Changed the World" and I have gathered her letters and writings
in Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Lord
Byron's Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer.
Though her life was short (like her father, she died at 36), Ada anticipated
by more than a century most of what we think is brand-new computing.

Other resources about Ada Byron

The Analytical Engine
at http://www.fourmilab.to/babbage/contents.html. Read historical documents related to the
Engine, including Ada Lovelace's translation and commentary of "Sketch of
the Analytical Engine" by L.F. Menabrea.